In today’s competitive recruitment market, businesses are always on the lookout for that perfect candidate who has both the necessary skills and the ability to fit in with their culture and values. Recruiters have found psychometric testing an irreplaceable tool to achieve this goal, shining a light on suitable candidates while helping to prevent mis-hiring.
A wide range of psychometric tests are available to companies, including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Identity Personality Assessment, and SHL Situational Judgment Test to name a few. Each has its own method and benchmarking system to reveal candidates’ personalities, capabilities, and social tendencies so that HR managers can bring aboard only those prospects who fall in line with their true business needs.
Objective Scoring
Traditional methods of evaluating candidates, including CVs and interviews, can be biased and subjective. Such imperfections may colour judgment during the recruitment process, limiting the effectiveness of the entire effort. By contrast, psychometric testing gives objective and standardised assessments which cover a range of personal characteristics, delivering consistency as well as insight.
These include detailed scores for various qualities such as skills, aptitude, behaviour, emotion, personality, and other important elements of a candidate’s character. From ambition to learning habits, to social instincts and interpersonal sensitivity, every candidate is evaluated under the same conditions.
This approach also helps HR managers move past their own personal preferences — such as detail-oriented workers or confident presenters, for example — and focus on what their company genuinely needs. Psychometric tests can reveal the specific attributes that a given team or organisation currently lacks, and then identify the candidate(s) who embody those attributes alongside their other relevant skills.
Equalised Comparison
A standardised framework for evaluation is also crucial in large-scale recruitment environments where large numbers of applicants are competing for the same position. Psychometric testing lets recruiters compare candidates by exactly the same criteria, regardless of where they came from or how they caught the attention of your hiring team, thereby ensuring a fair selection process based on actual measured abilities. This unified evaluation method provides more confidence when screening candidates, and when making a final selection from your applicant shortlist.
For example, imagine three candidates from different backgrounds, each applying for a managerial position within your company. They each have valuable skills but different values and perspectives on how they see things. Only a fixed testing framework can fairly and evenly compare the three candidates’ personalities, including their differing motivations and preferences.
A psychometric test may also uncover the degree to which each candidate is interested in career advancement, personal financial success, job security, and cultural traditions. This level of detail allows recruiters to make better informed decisions about which candidate would be more suitable for the managerial position that is currently available.
Predictive Performance
During interviews, most candidates accentuate their alertness, enthusiasm, and proactive nature, among other qualities. How, then, can a recruiter properly evaluate not only the positive but also the negative sides of a candidate who hands them the perfect CV?
Psychometric testing forces candidates to make specific choices, none of them perfect, within the context of imaginary situations. The totality of these choices reveal whether a given candidate is most likely reserved, aggressive, skeptical, or even mischievous in how they see and approach things. This insight is extremely valuable for making sure that the right candidate is hired, while minimising any risks that may arise in the future.
The results are clear: Psychometric testing has proven itself capable of determining a given candidate’s approach to their work life. This predictive element is critical to identify candidates who not only fulfill the job requirements but also have the potential for long-term success and growth within an organisation, given its values and culture, as well as the specific qualities it is looking to add to its team.
Support for Team Productivity
Team dynamics play an enormous role in their long-term productivity. If you can understand the personalities and communication styles of your team members, you’ll find it much easier to create well-balanced and dynamic teams to support your company’s goals.
Tests that measure teamwork and leadership skills let organisations assemble teams whose newer members can fill in the gaps from what is currently missing from the existing team. In this way, members’ strengths can neatly complement each other’s weaknesses.
For example, a team may soon fall apart if it has two or more members who share a similar thirst for leadership, as such a setup may provoke competition and conflict between the two. By the same token, most companies also wouldn’t want to bring together too many team members whose instinct is to bury themselves in details, since there may be nobody on the team focussed on seeing the bigger picture. Likewise, a business may need to have some people who are creative and others who excel at following directions, as opposed to having an imbalance between the former and the latter.
Smarter Hiring Means Greater Efficiency
Psychometric testing is an excellent way to save time and minimise risks, while fulfilling your company’s needs to reduce turnover and promote long-term success. By assisting in the construction of multi-skilled teams with a range of different experiences and points of view, these tests allow businesses to plan their organisational chart and their training focus well in advance. These tests can even help identify potential leaders early on, leading to a work environment that’s both innovative and dynamic, all in keeping with your company’s culture.
Although psychometric testing is an effective tool, remember that it supplements rather than replaces the more traditional parts of the recruitment process. It’s therefore important that every step in recruitment is handled with skill and care, since poor hires lead to poor performance that will prove costly in more ways than one. When part of a well-rounded hiring and onboarding system, however, psychometrics can help your business hire intelligently and achieve great success in the long run.
The Highfield Company uses psychometric testing to help you find ideal candidates. Get in touch at https://thehighfieldcompany.com/contact-us/
Author: Toby Ball, Managing Director, The Highfield Company
